


Against Hope

by Kitty Fisher (kittyfisher)



Series: Against Necessity [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, M/M, Recovery, post trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 23:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8346877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittyfisher/pseuds/Kitty%20Fisher
Summary: The way back...





	

Against Hope  
Kitty Fisher  
Sequel to _Against Necessity_  
For Lorelei – who demanded more…

 

“Hey, Peterson, how’s Sheppard – has McKay visited him yet?”

“No. And you know I can’t talk about what goes on in the infirmary, Janka!”

“Oh, come one – you’re off shift. Everyone wants to know what happened…”

“Leave the poor guy alone. But, between us? Those sisters were bitches – _and_ McKay’s refusing to see Heightmeyer.”

Gossip. One woman, one man. The second voice lowers, but Rodney can still hear it from where he’s sat, just around the corner in the rec room. “Imagine something like that happening to a regular guy like the colonel – no way is he a fag.”

“As far as we know.” Listening dispassionately to the snide comment, Rodney wonders if the other is a marine. “There’s all sorts of rumors about the Air Force, you know that – isn’t your brother one?”

“What? Queer or a fly-boy?”

“Both!”

“Hey, stop with the insults!” 

There’s a scraping of chair-legs on flooring, and Rodney sits quite still as their chatter moves away.

:::

“Is Colonel Sheppard all right?”

“How would I know!” Rodney snaps the words at Zelenka, which only makes the other scientist peer at him more closely, more sympathetically. Rodney grinds his teeth and worries about his caps. “I’m sorry.”

“So, is he back on duty or not?” Zelenka sounds confused, and Rodney stops inputting data long enough to actually look at him.

“Not yet. Beckett’s got him trapped in the infirmary.”

“Good, that’s good. He should be careful. Get well.” Light sparks off Zelenka’s glasses as he nods. “And what of yourself, Rodney?”

“What, me?”

“Yes. You. How are you?”

Rodney laughs, the sound stupidly bitter even to his own ears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t the one hurt.”

“No?”

And that Zelenka says the word like a question is too much. Rodney turns on his heel and simply walks away.

:::

Ronon stalks him for a while. Which is less than soothing. In the end Rodney deliberately walks out to the farthest pier and then simply stands still, feeling ridiculously like he’s reenacting some scene from High Noon. The tall form slips from the shadows and comes to stand before him. Lord, but he really is beautiful. Not attractive. Just beautiful. And if anyone is going to punish him, then there’s no shame in it being Ronon.

“Hi.”

“McKay.”

“Out for a stroll?”

He gets a look that’s narrowed and uncomprehending. Which is nothing new. The hesitation that goes with it isn’t. “Why are you out here, McKay?”

“Oh, taking the air. Walking.”

“You hate walking.”

Ah, yes. But admitting that he’s giving Ronon a clear field is a little too close to the bone. “I’m trying to get fit.”

The solemn face brightens. “Really? Then come running with me in the morning.”

What? You need the dawn as background before you can strangle me? Is it some ritual thing? “Sure.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Er, okay.”

“Don’t worry, doc, I’ll go easy on you.” And Ronon claps massive hand on his shoulder, almost knocking Rodney over. With a single half-salute, he turns and walks away.

:::

Rodney hates jogging. He’s not quite so sure that death by ritual strangulation wouldn’t be less painful. Afterwards – having by some weird insanity agreed to meet Ronon again the next day - he staggers back to his quarters and just falls onto his bed.

And sleeps, for five hours straight.

Which makes him late for a meeting, but Zelenka’s taken notes, and no one questions him, so he slips into his place and catches up fast. Perhaps sleep isn’t that overrated after all.

When the meeting’s done, Zelenka leans in, one finger poking his glasses back up his nose in a way that always makes Rodney want to tell him to get them adjusted properly, and looks at him.

“What?”

“You were late.”

“What, that’s a crime in mad-Czech scientist land?”

“No, but in Rodney-land, I think so.”

“Hey, once. I’m late once!”

“Why?”

“Ronon took me jogging.”

“Ah. Good.”

Rodney stares at him, wondering if sadism is a contractable disease. “Thanks.”

“No problem, as you would say.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t say that – you’re confusing me with some linguistically backward American.”

Sighing, Zelenka straightens. “Sometime, the difference, it is not so much.”

“Oh, and insults too! Shouldn’t you be in the lab destroying some of my valuable research?”

“If you wish me to, Rodney, I will destroy anything.”

Which is possibly a joke. One that possibly sounded better in the original.

:::

He almost gets used to the pain of running. Except it remains pain. And he pushes through it. Still way slower than Ronon. And the day Teyla joins them he wants nothing more than to cry. Not that he does. Afterwards, he sleeps again. And the physics department starts to re-schedule all its meeting to the afternoon.

The third day of her participation, Teyla walks him back to his quarters.

“You are improving, Rodney.”

“Kill or cure.”

“Is that what you want?”

The floor shifts under him, and Teyla’s hand is under his elbow, holding him up. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” She opens his door and guides him inside, and Rodney stumbles to his bed and sits, head dropped into his hands.

“Teyla, please leave?”

“It is wrong to punish yourself.”

“Oh, right, as if you know anything about it!” Rodney lifts his head and glares miserably at her.

She tilts her head to one side, and her gaze is stormy – but the storm isn’t aimed at him, and somehow it’s calming, just looking at the speck of his reflection in her eyes.

“Sheppard will be out of the infirmary today.”

Which jolts him hard, and he flinches. “Oh.”

“If you don’t go and see him, he will come to you.”

“Damn.”

“He has asked for you, every day.”

“Teyla…”

“You punish him as much as you punish yourself.” And with that she stands and activates the door. “Trust yourself, Rodney.”

Which was really so much easier to say than do.

:::

It’s not that he’s hiding, but there’s an awful lot to do in the farthest portion of the unexplored city. He’s half on his side, head under a bank of unexplained controls when he hears a soft cough.

“Ow!” Rodney sits up and rubs his head. “Give a guy some warning!”

“I did.”

“Oh.” Sheppard. Thinner than before. Off duty clothes – black BDU shirt, jeans, his feet in open-toed sandals. He hasn’t shaved today, and his skin is shadowed by stubble. Rodney swallows. “You ever make any noise when you walk?”

“Sure. You were concentrating too hard to hear me.”

Rodney nods. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I’ve spent enough time flat on my back, thanks.”

“Does Beckett agree?”

“Pretty much.” Sheppard shrugs and steps over the threshold to look around. “What is this place?”

“No idea. Zelenka picked up some strange reading emanating from here, so I said I’d check it out.” Not that he has to justify anything, not even to the Atlantis military commander, but when he’s speaking his mind can’t trip into free-flow – and he needs to be anchored in the now, and not the then.

“If I stay, will I be in the way?”

Yes. Of course, how can you even want to be here? “No. Whatever.”

“Great.” And Sheppard simply slides down a wall to sit down, quite calm, long legs stretched out in front of him, hands folded in his lap.

Rodney hides his face back in the machinery, trying not to remember Sheppard in that same position back in the cell. He works. After a while he even forgets that Sheppard is there. Until he emerges, and sees that Sheppard’s asleep, his head tilted back, exhaustion clear in every line of his face.

Letting out a breath, his hands unsteady, Rodney puts his equipment away. He could leave. He could. If only Sheppard didn’t look so tired. So ridiculously vulnerable.

In all his life he’s rarely felt guilt. Once when he was five, he caught a ladybug and, out of curiosity, pulled its wings apart. After that there was no way he was going to make a biologist. Ten years later, he knew a classmate’s secret and shared it even though she’d asked him not to – and he knew that it would make her unhappy.

Since then he’s been good with secrets.

Especially his own. Sheppard knows more about him than anyone in two galaxies.

And all he can think of is Sheppard screaming. Sheppard bleeding while Rodney fucks him.

Shame is dark, colored with hate and recrimination and a homicidal urge he’s never even come close to before. He’d watch while Ronon dismembered the sister. He might even wield the knife himself.

He wants time to turn back. Part of him even knows he could do it. But not right _now_ , and a few months time isn’t soon enough. 

He shifts slowly across the floor, edging toward Sheppard, half crawling, half just inching along on his knees. Closer, he looks. Stares. He’d wanted to go the infirmary, but every single time, he’s imagined Sheppard looking up at him, and there being something in his eyes that’s changed. A difference. Oh, Rodney knows himself to be a coward. Knows it’s better not to see at all than to risk that loss.

Or he thought it was.

Now, he’s not so sure.

:::

Sheppard sleeps for another hour. Rodney watches him wake up, the process slow, not entirely without discomfort. He almost smiles when he sees Rodney, then doesn’t.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I let you sleep.”

“Thanks.” Sheppard moves, stretching his arms, before pushing a little further up the wall. He makes no move to stand up or leave.

“You look terrible.”

“Thanks. Have you looked in the mirror recently?”

Rodney snorts a laugh. “No.”

“Try it.”

“No thanks.” But he sighs, and moves to sit against Sheppard’s wall, his feet stretched out. After a while he wonders if he’s crying, but perhaps it’s the sunlight in his eyes.

“Hey…” Sheppard turns, and from the corner of his eye Rodney can see the concern on his face, which is so, so wrong. “Rodney, talk to me?”

“What should I say?” He swallows, tasting salt. “I’m sorry? Or how about – gee, Colonel, that was rough, but hey, let’s just get on with being friends?”

“Not friends, Rodney.”

Which twists his gut so hard Rodney wonders if he’ll throw up here and now. “Right.” He nods. “Of course.”

“You are such an idiot.”

“Oh, and insults too? Now my day is perfect.”

Sheppard’s hand lifts, and gently takes hold of his own, tight enough that Rodney can’t just pull away, has to endure it while his arm is tugged and pulled until he’s shifted around to be facing Sheppard.

“Why didn’t you come to see me?”

He shakes his head, terror, there, like a shadow over his sight. “Couldn’t.”

“I know that, but why?”

“John! I…”

“Did what you had to.” Sheppard gives a little shrug. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re very stubborn, Rodney McKay. You seen Heightmeyer yet?”

“No.”

“Been running with Ronon, though, haven’t you?”

“Yes, though I really don’t see the correlation…” Then he does. “Oh. You bastards.”

“No – good friends.”

Rodney shakes his head.

:::

It’s Teyla who comes to find them.

“Hi.” Sheppard waves a hand in greeting as she strolls in. She smiles that enigmatic smile that’s destroyed more marines than the Wraith. 

Rodney glares at her. “I did not need a nursemaid!”

She slants a look at Sheppard. “That was not the intention.”

“Hah!”

“John, you left your radio off, and Doctor Beckett needs to see you.”

“Great.” Sheppard sighs wearily. “More blood.”

“Doesn’t he think you’ve lost enough?”

“Apparently not.” Sheppard lets go of Rodney’s hand, and takes Teyla’s offered one, letting himself be hauled upright. “Come on, McKay. Come and make nice to Carson, he thinks you don’t love him anymore.”

They walk in companionable silence to the transporter. Teyla smiles at him again, and Rodney feels warmer than he has for days. Obediently, because John looks like he might set Teyla on him if he says no, Rodney stays through the barbaric blood-sampling process. He even manages a few civil words with both the doctor and the nurse, who seems intent on making very certain that Sheppard’s comfortable.

Afterwards, Ronon is just there, and there’s a complex exchange of glances that leaves Rodney off-kilter. But not upset. Ronon takes Teyla away and Sheppard walks back to his quarters – with Rodney. The shifts are mid-change, so there’s a lot of crew out in the corridors. There’s a few stares. Nothing overt. After a few minutes, Rodney stops feeling so self-conscious. Sheppard never looks anything but serene.

When his doors slide shut, he just walks into Rodney’s arms and kisses him.

Sheppard knows more of Rodney’s secrets than anyone else, alive or dead. Some of them are theirs, not just his, and they weave through them, breath to breath as they kiss. Because Rodney does kiss Sheppard back. He shivers into the touch, into the warmth and the acceptance.

After a while, Sheppard guides Rodney down, easing him onto the bed, climbing on after him, pressing them body to body, though he lifts his head and simply looks into Rodney’s eyes.

The secrets are there. Safe. Theirs. And somehow Rodney no longer wonders about killing. Or dying. And he holds onto Sheppard’s shoulders, holds tight while Sheppard wraps an arm around his chest, and sighs as he settles there.

“Don’t scare me again, Rodney.” He can feel Sheppard’s mouth moving against his shirt, and the words are muffled.

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t…”

“For being an idiot…?”

Sheppard pulls himself even closer. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that.” Rodney laughs, softly, and strokes Sheppard’s shoulder. There’s amazement, like a bubble in his throat. It’s a good thing. A wonder.

Sheppard sounds drowsy. “Stay with me?”

“Yes.” The dark, tousled head lifts, and Rodney blinks, just about meeting cloudy hazel interrogation. “If that’s what you’re asking?”

“No more jogging with Ronon?”

“No.”

“Good. Everything else – one day at a time?”

“That… sounds good.” He takes a deep breath. “John…I…” But he can’t quite go on.

Not that he needs to. Sheppard’s lips twist sweetly. “Yeah, me too.” And he rests his head back on Rodney’s shoulder. “Man, I’m tired. And wow do I owe Radek big time…”

About three seconds later he’s asleep. Rodney stares up at the unfamiliar ceiling, and smiles stupidly for a very long time.

 

The End


End file.
